The Domino Effect

Some people are obvious candidates for political appointments: connections galore and a closet full of power suits. Hallie Montoya Tansey, 29, is not one of those people, but she's now a confidential assistant in the Department of Education. Until August, she lived in a rowhouse in DC's Columbia Heights neighborhood with four other young political appointees and a political consultant, none of whom has taken a traditional path from San Francisco, where they met, to Capitol Hill (two have since moved out). They are part of a generation of experienced, progressive young organizers the Obama campaign tapped into, evidence that the extraordinary youth engagement in the election didn't materialize from thin air.

Montoya Tansey's personal political epiphany came when, after being laid off from her gig as a music teacher, she volunteered for Matt Gonzalez, a Green Party candidate for mayor of San Francisco. "I never thought candidates who believed in what I believe in could get elected," she says of the 2003 campaign. "I worked seven days a week for free. It's an addictive feeling to realize that you can engage on your own terms." Gonzalez lost, but Montoya Tansey, 29, was hooked. She took a job as field director for the League of Young Voters, engaging youth in politics. She joined the Obama campaign when fellow Gonzalez campaign veteran and current housemate Nicole Derse recommended her for a field organizing position in Nevada.

Derse, who grew up in conservative Slinger, Wisconsin, has been an activist since she was a teenager. She moved to San Francisco in 2001, and got a job on the city's Youth Commission, mentoring its young members to become advocates on their own behalf. While she was there, Derse volunteered on the Gonzalez campaign and met Montoya Tansey. "I was disappointed when he lost, but I loved the intensity of campaigning," she says.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.